ARTICLES ABOUT WORKPLACE VIOLENCE BY DATE - PAGE 2

"I was afraid to come back, I admit it. " Michael Raymond arrived at Hartford Distributors Inc. in Manchester at 6:45 a.m. Wednesday, eight days after his coworker Omar Thornton killed eight men before turning the gun on himself in Connecticut's worst workplace massacre. Raymond said he had chills running down his spine during a ceremony outside the office and warehouse. He was among more than 100 people there, including Teamsters from beer distributors throughout Connecticut and Rhode Island who were on hand to help out. Men draped arms over each others' shoulders.

"I was afraid to come back, I admit it. " Michael Raymond arrived at Hartford Distributors Inc. in Manchester at 6:45 a.m. Wednesday, eight days after his coworker Omar Thornton killed eight men before turning the gun on himself in Connecticut's worst workplace massacre. Raymond said he had chills running down his spine during a ceremony outside the office and warehouse. He was among more than 100 people there, including Teamsters from beer distributors throughout Connecticut and Rhode Island who were on hand to help out. Men draped arms over each others' shoulders.

As Hartford Distributors prepares to reopen this week, beer deliveryman David Zylberman isn't sure he wants to go back. "I don't even know if I can handle working again," said the 54-year-old Vernon resident. "I don't want to be behind [the wheel of] an 18-wheel trailer and start freaking out. " Recovering from an extreme episode of workplace violence — in this case, last week's mass murder of eight employees and the suicide of the killer, fellow employee Omar Thornton — isn't something most people ever face.

The shooting deaths of nine people, including the shooter, are much more horrific than the average incident of workplace violence, according to an expert in workplace-violence insurance. "Quite often you'll see a situation where one or two people are killed, perhaps a few are wounded," said Greg Bangs, vice president of coverage for crime, kidnap, ransom, extortion and workplace-violence claims at New Jersey-based Chubb Group of Insurance Companies. "It's very rare to see as many as eight individuals plus the perpetrator, so nine total, individuals dead.

By DANIELA ALTIMARI and STEVE GOODE, altimari@courant.com, August 4, 2010

The pattern is familiar: Someone goes on a shooting rampage in the workplace, and experts in mental health, law enforcement and the media struggle to find lessons in the aftermath. That's what happened after four employees were shot to death at the Connecticut Lottery headquarters in 1998 by a disgruntled worker who then turned the gun on himself. The legislature toughened gun laws, and then-Gov. John G. Rowland ordered the state to conduct a security review of all its buildings.

As news of a workplace shooting at Hartford Distributors continues to unfold, it's hard not to flash back to the shocking lottery shootings. In 1998, Matthew Beck brazenly killed four supervisors at the Connecticut Lottery Corp. in Newington. Workplace shootings were becoming increasingly common by then, but that was the first time Connecticut experienced senseless slayings on that level. In the years that followed, workplace violence seemed to be everywhere, and at least according to some studies, continues to be on the rise.

Sept. 13, 2009: Annie Le, 24, of Placerville, Calif., a doctoral student at Yale University in New Haven, is found strangled, her body stuffed into a wall at Yale Animal Research Center. Former Yale lab technican Raymond J. Clark III, 25, of Middletown, has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and felony murder in the case, and is awaiting trial. Nov. 30, 1998: John W. Cahoon, 63, of North Stonington, dies from head injuries caused in a dispute with fellow Electric Boat employee Richard Dorans.

When Raymond Clark III was arrested in the death of Yale graduate student Annie Le, New Haven Police Chief James Lewis said that the case was not about urban crime or university crime, but about workplace violence. Whether Clark is guilty and, if so, why he might have attacked Le are issues that aren't now certain. It is known that Clark was a technician in the lab where Le was doing graduate work. There have been reports of friction between the two, but police have not confirmed this.